This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 (a) on Patent Application No. 2011-183921 filed in Japan on Aug. 25, 2011, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus (e.g., a copier, a multifunction peripheral, and a printer), a processing unit, and an image forming method.
In a conventional image forming apparatus, typically, an image forming portion forms an obtained image on an image formation target such as an image carrier or a transfer target. For example, image formation according to an electrophotographic method is performed by charging a surface of an image carrier such as a photosensitive member that functions as an image formation target, exposing an image to the charged surface to form an electrostatic latent image, making visible (developing) the electrostatic latent image as a toner image, electrostatically transferring the visible toner image to an intermediate transfer member or a recording sheet such as a recording paper, and, if transferring the toner image to the intermediate transfer member, further transferring that image to a recording sheet.
Examples of such image forming apparatuses include an image forming apparatus in which, for example, a calibration process (adjustment of image qualities such as image darkness or tone) that forms a measurement patch as a calibration chart on a recording sheet using an image forming portion, reads the measurement patch, and calibrates (corrects) image forming conditions based on the read value is performed in order to obtain proper image forming conditions such as image carrier charge potential, developing bias voltage, and image exposure light quantity according to the use status, the environment, and the like (see JP 2007-137013A and JP 2010-85828A, for example).
Examples of such image forming apparatuses further include an image forming apparatus including a coating portion that performs a coating process that forms a coating film made of resin or the like on a recording sheet having an image formed (see JP 2003-103880A, for example).
However, these three patent documents described above merely disclose either the configuration for performing the calibration process or the configuration for performing the coating process, and none of the patent documents discloses both of the configurations. Even in the case where the configuration for performing the calibration process and the configuration for performing the coating process are combined, if a calibration process (adjustment of image qualities such as image darkness or tone) is performed on a recording sheet that does not require the coating process, the calibration process cannot be suitable for a recording sheet that has undergone the coating process.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus, a processing unit, and an image forming method that allow for a calibration process suitable for an image on a recording sheet that has undergone a coating process of forming a coating film.